Anyone for a trip to mars?

[kibblesticks]

Some very interesting hooks for the settlement situation :thumbsup:

 

weellll it's against my better judgement, but alright then :turned: I can definately see the interest in the twist of the Morlocks harvesting the tribals like cattle. Still means they're going to have to be fairly intelligent though, to come up with a scheme like that. Also, the city doesn't really work with my ghoul idea, as the military would have just shot the ghouls on transformation. Sooo, could we possibly use the beginning of my story on the Morlocks, as an explanation as to why they're under the dome in the first place? Then we just change the end result to them sealing themselves beneath the dome and going crazy with hatred for the tribals, turning to cannibalism. That makes them your version of antagonist whilst adding a bit of a believable back story, which the Morlocks are lacking at the moment?

[greenknightfury]

My thing with the land deal was the idea of very long term investment, or the fact of just having the mineral/resource rights to that much land, would be a huge temptation to the Corporations. The New World parallel was only part of my thought there as before international accord over how Antarctica was to be used/settled the exact same type of deals were done and the governments just kind of took the money and ran when the accords invalidated those deals. Antarctica at the time being a perfect parallel, only the governments had access to the type of ships that could reach the true stable shore not the ice sheet, so even with the deal and the funding that meant they were getting through the companies help (or outright sale of huge chunks of unclaimed land), the government still controlled all back and forth travel.

 

 

Besides what better way to supplement taxmoney than charging some company 50 times what shipping and building a facility on Mars would cost so they it could sit in hopes of being used by the company (with the Enclave planning to use it themselves if fleeing Earth was neccesary the whole time).

Edited March 30, 2012 by greenknightfury

[TrooperScooperMKII]

An ironic twist to the common "rich CEO buys into Enclave for Post-war survival" scheme; the enclave blwo the money on Pre-war funding, leaving the sponsors high and dry, because they never intended to leave Earth in the first place (at least not for decades after the war happened). :tongue:

[devinpatterson]

my thought there as before international accord over how Antarctica was to be used/settled the exact same type of deals were done and the governments just kind of took the money and ran when the accords invalidated those deals. Antarctica at the time being a perfect parallel, only the governments had access to the type of ships that could reach the true stable shore not the ice sheet, so even with the deal and the funding that meant they were getting through the companies help (or outright sale of huge chunks of unclaimed land), the government still controlled all back and forth travel.

 

I wasn't aware of this piece of hisotry, but what I don't know could fill the national archives, in addition I'll be teh first to admit my school wasn't exactly awesome. But I did a little bit of research (wiki etc) and I can't seem to locate that info. If you could send me the link I"d appreciate it, as I'v become something of history nut on Antarctica (primarily due to some research for the ufo mod thread here on nexus).

 

I'm also curious how that could be the case in general, since the biggest company (in the U.S.) is a miniscule fraction of the net worth of the Gov. And teh timeline seems really odd.

 

The first permanent base was set up in 1956 and the treaty was signed in 1959. I don't see how any corp could fall for such a bait and switch, since there wasn't anything done/constructed until 3 years before teh treaty and that was only one small base. Especially since all the expeditions seemed to be funded by various gov (didn't find any mention of private business). But far stranger things happen every day and I'd like to add it as history for my mod. Plus it will be intersting reading how that could have come about.

 

Besides what better way to supplement taxmoney than charging some company 50 times what shipping and building a facility on Mars would cost so they it could sit in hopes of being used by the company (with the Enclave planning to use it themselves if fleeing Earth was neccesary the whole time).

 

But that would just be making a worse case for the corps. They have no reason to spend their money for land they can't and won't be able to reach or use for a very long time, plus they pay exorbitant fees. Any CEO that fell for that should be taken outside by the shareholders and beat senseless.......well more senseless.

 

But a bigger question is if your having to construct elaborate and (IMHO) unrealistic scenarios to fit a condition into lore, is it a red flag? It's obvious you want this, but if you need to jump through various obstacles to achieve it (via the story line), the question is why do you want it? Why not go with lore (or as close as we can come), then against it?

 

Is it the human context that your looking for? That can be achived by a number of non-human actors. For instance the think tank doctors are cyborgs that have been alive for over two centuries, not your definition of a typical human, but you can still make a human connection with them. The same goes for intelligent ghouls and even robots/AI's.

 

Is there a different reason that I haven't hit upon? So let me know what is your preferences in the situation so I can get a better of idea of how to shape things so that we include what you'd like to see and keep my vision of the mod in harmony

Edited March 30, 2012 by devinpatterson

[devinpatterson]

weellll it's against my better judgement, but alright then :turned:

 

It's just part of the 50's sci-fi homage (although I added a bit from the 2003 movie as well), it's far from an essential plot. In fact I'm kinda iffy on the homage simply because it was a lot of story lines and we have a ton on our plate as it is.

 

 

Sooo, could we possibly use the beginning of my story on the Morlocks,

 

Probably, I think they are actually pretty similar (origins) with what I had in mind, when I get home from work I'll run back over your notes.

 

An ironic twist to the common "rich CEO buys into Enclave for Post-war survival" scheme; the enclave blwo the money on Pre-war funding, leaving the sponsors high and dry, because they never intended to leave Earth in the first place (at least not for decades after the war happened). :tongue:

 

I have to admit I'm confused on the economics of the whole situation that GreenKnightFury mentions. The largest U.S. corps rake in billions, the us Gov trillions. Doesn't seem to fit together. Plus Corps feed of off Gov (military and civilian contracts), not the other way around. Large corp taxes, on average, hover in the single digits. Google paid 2.4%, GE 2.3% in our world and fallouts is more capitalistic.

 

So to me it seems like the Corps that use the Gov, not the other way around. Confused how they would sponser a gov project.

[greenknightfury]

I'm looking at it from the FO universes obvious financial situation. The Government is spending insane amounts of money (and I mean that literally there is at least one hint that they actual exponentially increase the national debt to fund these things) on:

 

1) The War. It's been going on almost continiously for over a decade of full deployment of the full time military. (annexing Canada and Anchorage Invasion dates lead to this conclusion)

 

2) Full deployment of the reserves and National guard to support joint research/searches for resources in untapped areas, urban peacekeeping (due to food riots), keeping order during the newly expanded CDC operations (see next one)

 

3) The expanded CDC (or whatever they called that agency) to examine every single citizen and develop a cure/vaccine for the many odd virus' that suddenly cropped up, many of which were at least mildly mutative (the swamp folk of Point Lookout are products of one variety of these sicknesses, at least that is what the pamphlet note implies since the symptoms noted are their deformities with lowered cognitive function).

 

4) Pouring insane amounts of money into various corporations buying things from them, like the insane amount of robots they were buying, or practically anything else used for the war effort while also paying huge amounts to those same companies to research needlessly bizarre, deadly and complicated weapons, robots or other things.

 

As to the Antartica thing...gods I'd have to find the actual books again since most references seem to ignore it or it never crossed their eyes at all in their research. The reason it gets ignored so much though is understandable since the deal was made right before we ended up in WW II the development of what they wanted there never got started as the super-icebreaker vessels never finished development, and well...at least the government had a good reason for the money getting spent outside setting up the facilities for them, those few that even thought to ask about it later.

 

Basically when the deal was made the best they (the government) could do was drop a small group of people and equipment, but everyone figured that it was just a few years of r&d to a much larger better icebreaker ship so in the money came, mostly from mining and oil companies. Really it was about as well thought out as the company that bankrupted itself buying icebergs as a cheap way to get ice then tried to ship it to the midwest cut up in unrefrigerated traincars and sitting the iceberg itself as they cut it up in the open in the summer just outside a commercial shipping bay (i forget which other than it was east coast, really have to find that book of failures again later in my rather overloaded bookshelves).

 

As we have seen though shortsighted, insane, corrupt or stupid seems to be the only types of decisions made by anyone rich or powerful in the PreWar FO universe. Another supporter of that is something that also shows the governments monetary trouble at the time, the fact that many important government installations (i.e. the Smithsonian divisions, the Arlington library) were accepting corporate or private sponsorship/exhibits and then allowing them to dictate to them as to policy (entries about not liking the weapon manufacturers weapon exhibit but being forced to display it for financial reasons in the Museum of technology, the Arlington Reads program changes).

Edited March 31, 2012 by greenknightfury

[devinpatterson]

I'm looking at it from the FO universes obvious financial situation.

 

Yes, and 1-4 shows that the gov is willing to spend enormous amounts on the war effort. But your assertion is that Corps are willing to foot the bill for a very expensive project in trade for something they can't use (land on mars) or reach. In addition the Gov has resources in the trillions vs even teh biggest companies having resources in the billions (going off our real world model). The parallel is you having 1000's and asking a guy with singles to pick up the tab for dinner at a gourmet restaurant.

 

As we have seen though shortsighted, insane, corrupt or stupid seems to be the only types of decisions made by anyone rich or powerful in the PreWar FO universe.

 

But it's not just one CEO, your suggesting somewhere around a dozen of the most successful (and therefore I'd assume capable) companies are all duped into doing the exact opposite of their primary purpose (to make a profit).

 

So all of which begs the question is it something you need for a plot device? Because there is a lot more leniency if you'v got a kick butt story that depends on that set up. Or is it just back story/history?

Edited March 31, 2012 by devinpatterson

[devinpatterson]

Oh also on the theme/encounter of scientist putting their grey matter in robobrains, I also have a protectron model brainbot;

 

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/6527/protectronbraineye.jpg

 

The brain needs to be enlarged a little (I'll scale the height), but the idea is pretty simple. Using the same technology as the robobrain (glass dome, pressurized bio gel etc) and a specially constructed protectron to have more mobile/adaptable soldiers. I couldn't make the argument that this research could only be done on mars, but it would benefit from the location in two ways. 1. working on live subjects (probably convicts or Chinese prisoners) is a huge potential problem if word got out. So Mars isolation would preclude that. And 2. they would come in very handy in the martian environment. "Robobrains, due to the nature of their organic processor, can be programmed with much more complex and expansive instructions than typical robots". So they have some flexibility and high level thinking that humans posses along with the advantages of a bot (no 02, food/water, sleep etc) which would be very hand in the martian environment.

 

I also have one rigged to a human skeleton thanks to monster costumes. So it can perform all the animations/functions of a human from sitting to throwing a grenade.

 

If you guys think it's too unlikely the mars project would work on them, in spite of the two points above, then we could say they were converted from existing robobrain tech and cobbled together by the scientists after everything went to hell. Not any new tech, just moving/customizing the container. This way the scientist would have a slightly more humanoid body. Oh and maybe they ran out of protectrons and one unlucky scientist had to use a promotional nuka-cola protectron like the one below (on the left);

 

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/5174/shorty1.jpg

 

 

There's a humanoid brain bot under tactics but it's rather unique.

Edited March 31, 2012 by devinpatterson

[TrooperScooperMKII]

The protectron brain is a great idea.

Speaking of which, what do we do for the double brain in the FEV lab? Given the extra support systems (that it probably would need) and the extra weight, I think it would probably be a bigger and/or unique.. a combat exoskeleton type thing, I mean, even if the captain-McCarthy was a kickass soldier and leader, 200 years is a long time to fight alone. He'd probably have swapped out plenty of spare parts (and aftermarket modifications?) to keep his shell in peak condition...

with FEV "moss" on his body?

Maybe he could be the "guardian" in the terraforming dome... the FEV dome is a bit harsh.

[devinpatterson]

The protectron brain is a great idea.

Speaking of which, what do we do for the double brain in the FEV lab? Given the extra support systems (that it probably would need) and the extra weight, I think it would probably be a bigger and/or unique.

 

Well I was thinking of using this one as a base because it has no neck for the support platform (86'ing a weak point), has a larger dome that can accommodate two brains, and I have increased the size of the arms as well. Plus we can scale him (the pic is not to scale) up an extra 10 or 15% to make him taller, add a different color bio-gel (maybe blue or red), remove the coller thing and I can try to add other stuff, maybe thicker plating or some such. Oh and I'd like to add a transformer with some arcing electricity on the back;

 

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/9043/marsassaultvechicle.jpg

 

I mean, even if the captain-McCarthy was a kickass soldier and leader, 200 years is a long time to fight alone. He'd probably have swapped out plenty of spare parts (and aftermarket modifications?) to keep his shell in peak condition...

with FEV "moss" on his body?

Maybe he could be the "guardian" in the terraforming dome... the FEV dome is a bit harsh.

 

True, the FEV facility is not a place you want to spend a few centuries in. The moss is a particularly good idea if he's in the terraforming dome, it would add some great contrast to the metal. You know if you do decide to develop him into a companion it might be fun to have quests re: his/it's hardware. Initially parts to fix him, but later upgrades so he can become more useful in combat.....just a thought.